I'm a recent Northwestern University graduate who helps out with Forbes' Business-Life team. Before Forbes, I reported on tech, entertainment, health and the viral Internet for TIME.com and interviewed celebrities for the magazine's culture section. Before that, I did investigative reporting at the Medill Watchdog project, lifestyle reporting for the Chicago alt weekly Newcity and blogging at Entertainment Weekly, where I fact-checked a lot of obscure music and movie trivia. I hang out on Twitter @nolanfeeney, but feel free to email me at nfeeney@forbes.com.

Cronut Craze Attracts Advertisers, Black Market

Foodies have resorted to desperate measures to get their hands on the cronut, a delicious donut-croissant hybrid from New York’s Dominique Ansel Bakery — one Big Apple resident even offered to exchange the much-hyped pastry for sexual favors.

One of Good Days Marketing's trucks.

So it’s no surprise that advertisers are interested in getting in on the craze, too, and one company wants to help them do it. Right across from the Spring Street bakery is a small, food truck-like vehicle that belongs to Good Days Marketing, a mobile marketing and technology company that wraps trucks with advertisements and branding, video monitors and live social media feeds. They’re selling the sides of the truck truck — parked right in front of their headquarters — to companies eager to expose their brands to the hundreds of tourists and city-dwellers lining up at the crack of dawn.

“I was going for a run and saw the lines and said, hey, there’s got to be an opportunity to make some money off this,” says Joey Goodwin, the creative director for Good Days Marketing, which has worked with brands such as Express, Focus Features and New Balance to set up mobile advertising stations across the city.

So far, few companies have reached out to Goodwin himself, and none have actually taken up the offer to buy the space, though Goodwin says he was in near-final talks with Crunch and Seamless before they backed away due to having filled their summer ad budgets. Goodwin, who says he hasn’t seen any other company try and sell ad space near the bakery, is also in talks with property managers on the block about selling space in vacant windows.

Why advertise to cronut cronies? Though the frenzy may seem like just a fad, fans of the pastry make an ideal market for multiple reasons. First, they’re a captive audience with plenty of time and little else to look at — the line for cronuts starts usually starts before 6 a.m., and it wraps around the block well before the bakery’s 8 a.m. weekday opening. They have disposable income — cronuts, which have a two-per-person limit, go for $5 pre-tax, unless you’re buying them off the black market. And they’re also the kind of people who investigate the hype when a restaurant or a food trend gets traction in the press or on social media.

“They pick up Time Out magazine, they read it and they’re interested,” Goodwin says. “They want to go to that next bar, that next store, and have that experience.”

The cronut itself has some staying power, too. Dominique Ansel debuted his claim to fame in May of this year following two months of tinkering with 10 different recipes. After New York Magazine’s Grub Street blog promised the treat would “change your life,” the mediafrenzy over the fried pastry took off, and, just like the line around the block, has yet to die down. Which means trying to get some impressions near the bakery may not be such a bad investment.

“I’m sure in the winter time they’re going to be lines,” Goodwin says. “[Ansel’s] already come up with something else. What he makes tastes wonderful. I don’t think there’s going to be much debate over that.”

Goodwin is putting out a zine, which features the Bird brothers and Ansel clashing over cronut scalping. Drawing by Good Days Marketing art director John Gagliano.

The truck isn’t the first money-making idea Goodwin cooked up following the cronut’s rise to fame. He takes credit — much to Ansel’s dismay — for helping start the cronut black market, now headed up by two neighborhood characters, Joe and Danny Bird. (Bird isn’t their actual last name, but the nickname stuck because Joe is a documented pigeon-catcher, and the two also sometimes sell game birds to restaurants.)

“We sleep here anyway, so we’re the first ones here,” says Joe Bird, who used to buy up cronuts and then scalp them to those at the back of the line for an average price of $30 per pastry.

These days, he doesn’t enter the bakery any more — Bird says Ansel refuses to sell to him after the Huffington Post identified him and his brother as cronut scalpers — so he’s resorted to selling his spot in line for similar prices to eager customers.

“It’s a classic New York story,” Goodwin says. “One guy’s working really hard to make something, another guy sees the opportunity and also work hard, and even us, we’re trying to seize the opportunity too.”

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.